We all walked into the dorm for the very first time freshman year and questions were racing through our minds. These questions were as simple as "How do I decorate my room" all of the way to "I wonder who I will become friends with in this place". We all may not having started in the same dorm, or the same year, but little did I know somehow this journey would lead me to you.
We've all heard over and over again that college is the place, the place where we will make the friendships that last us a lifetime. Did any of us think twice about this statement freshman year? How and where would we meet these forever friends? We still held onto our high school friendships that were made, and most would surely fade. There are a lucky few that stay close after high school, but high school is only the beginning mold of the person we would become. It was merely a starting point; and sometimes sad, but to grow apart from friends meant only that you each were growing even if it was not in the same direction.
And so it began. You walked around your entire first day saying hi to everyone you could and leaving your door wide open in hopes that someone, anyone, would walk into your room. It might have taken days for some, maybe weeks for others, but something began to grow. A family was formed your freshman year. Your floor mates that you would run into on a daily basis and play games in the lobby until 3 in the morning. We all learned that privacy was a thing of the past when you had 30 of your closest friends knocking on your dorm room door or letting themselves right in at any second of the day. Let's be honest, we loved every second of it. Who wouldn't want to live 30 ft away from 30 of your friends. This filled your time with countless memories that could never be replaced. Games played on the elevators, group talks about life for hours, learning what an all nighter is and for sure pulling at least one in your college career. Endless trips to the school Cafeteria and challenges on who could bring back the most fruit in their pockets was just the start of your charades. These would be the people you would roll squad deep with into parties that year and have the time of your life. Or the polar opposite, the people you would walk around town with all night not being able to find a party that would let you all in. Not everyone from this group would be with you at the end: some would transfer, some make new friends, some different ages that would leave this place before you. So you can still are there wondering, who would these forever friends be?
Then you blink and it finally hits you. It's your senior year and you take a look around. There they are. The people that always have your back, that aren't afraid to tell you when you're wrong, and that you have conversations with about anything and everything. The people that you're grabbing pizza with at 3 a.m on a Saturday night. The ones that hug you when your tears are rolling and you need someone the most. The ones that wake you up to move your car before you get a ticket for street cleaning. The ones whose closets are your closets and you still take forever picking out outfits for the night. The friends who's not afraid to tell you no, to stay up with you until all hours of the night watching movies, to get breakfast with the morning after a long night of drinking and all you need is food. The friends that you see everyday and still get a text in the group message from someone asking where everyone went when they've only been home alone for an hour. The friends that have been there and stayed through some of the hardest times in your life so far. The people who help you grow and who you learn from. The ones who better each other by being together, but sometimes slip up and eat ice cream as a team at midnight. Friends who you can say anything to, who will listen to you, whose friends and families become your own too. The people you cannot imagine spending your senior year with anyone else and who came to mind when you read this sentence.
College molds you and creates you. This is not the end and your growing will not end here. Look around, these are your forever friends. Although not a goodbye, but a see you later Winnie the Pooh said it best, "how lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard."
So let me say thank you to my forever friends. Thank you for being there, for listening, for talking me out of sending that text, or for making up irrational reasons with me on why I should send it . Thank you for always being up for a dage the second the nice weather would break. Thank you for hugging me when I needed you or just being there when I didn't have words to explain what I needed. Thank you for studying with me at all hours of the night and for cheering me on when it was time to take an exam. Thank you for telling me it was finally time to wash my hair. Thank you for being you, because being you and being friends with you taught me something about myself. Thank you for doing me favors when I needed them and letting me know when I should get my ass up do them myself. Thank you for your friendship and for the last year that I would not change for the world. I could not have imagined college without you guys and I couldn't have done it without you. Although this may be an end, it is too a beautiful beginning and we will face it together. I love you guys.
